Page 43 of Art of Love
“Thank you.” He gave me a curt nod, and his eyes dropped from mine to my lips and then travelled down my body. I actually felt the strength in the look, as if he was touching me with invisible fingers. “You look really pretty in that dress.”
He held my gaze and resembled the Hunter I’d met weeks ago. The one who teased me and made me think we’d slept together.
“Thanks, but I need to change out of said dress.” I smiled.
“Need help?” A cocky smile brightened his face as his gaze flicked over my eyes.
“No,” I said a little too quickly.
He gave me the same saucy look he had in my dreams.
I was cursed to replay the night we’d first met over and over again asleep and awake.
Sometimes I preferred the handful of days when I couldn’t remember anything, because it felt weird when I started thinking about him and how he kissed me and how we were. Then I had to remind myself that we’d both been drunk out of our minds and it hadn’t been real.
It was confusing for times like this when I swore he looked at me with desire, but I couldn’t be sure I was just seeing what I wanted to see.
He took hold of my arm as I moved to go and pulled me back. “The zip on the back of your dress got twisted, remember?”
That was actually true. It had snagged in the fabric while he’d painted me earlier.
“Okay, help me with the zip.” I tried to hold back a smile, but he wasn’t as coy as me.
His eyes lit up when I said that. I flicked my hair to the side and held the dress close to my chest because I wasn’t wearing a bra.
I could see our reflection in one of the old mirrors in the corner. He followed my gaze and leaned closer, so his hair mingled with mine. We looked good together, like an actual couple.
“You’ll need help getting all this silver off your back.” He ran his fingers across my skin, sending shivers down my spine.
“Are you going to insist on washing it off for me?”
“Those were literally my next words. You just made it easier,” he smirked.
“I’ll take a bath when I get home, but thanks for the offer.” I shook my head at him.
“Will that be a bubble bath?” He leaned down to my ear and tugged on the zipper. “I can imagine you in a bubble bath.”
His warm breath tickled my ear, and I twisted around to face him.
“Why are you imagining me in a bubble bath?”
“You’re always in my head, can’t get you out. It’s not difficult to conjure up the image of your perfect body in a bubble bath.”
“You know you can stop with the games now, right?” That was me trying to resist the lure that pulled me to him. That lure that I knew I should most definitely ignore. He’d stopped being playful and teasing that day at the park, and it was just putting our heads together to make tonight happen. At times, I caught him looking at me, and I didn’t know what he was thinking, but just now was the first since that day that he’d been playful Hunter trying to freak me out.
“I’m not playing any game.” He shook his head and smiled. “I’m being real with you. I can’t get you out of my head.”
“You need to.”
“Why?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn’t think of an answer. There was one obvious answer looming right over us, but I didn’t want to say it.
“Cat got your tongue?” He smirked.
“No.”
“Don’t you feel it?”
